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Musk Offers $100 to Wisconsin Voters, Bringing Back a Controversial Tactic

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Musk Offers 0 to Wisconsin Voters, Bringing Back a Controversial Tactic

Elon Musk is bringing back his most controversial gambit from the 2024 presidential election: paying voters as part of a plan to identify and turn out conservative-leaning ones.

The super PAC that Mr. Musk founded to funnel his fortune into Republican causes, America PAC, said on Thursday that it was offering $100 to registered voters in Wisconsin who sign a petition “in opposition to activist judges” or refer others to sign it. Mr. Musk has been using the group to spend millions of dollars to elect a conservative candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in an April 1 election.

The petition reads: “Judges should interpret laws as written, not rewrite them to fit their personal or political agendas. By signing below, I’m rejecting the actions of activist judges who impose their own views and demanding a judiciary that respects its role — interpreting, not legislating.”

The purpose of the petition is multifaceted: Drive attention from the news media, increase awareness and voter registration among conservative voters, and help America PAC collect data on the most energized Wisconsinites who are likely to turn out for the conservative candidate, Brad Schimel.

Mr. Musk carried out a nearly identical maneuver in battleground states before the November election, generating significant legal and political debate.

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The Philadelphia district attorney sued to stop the distribution of those lottery-style payouts, which went up to $1 million to voters who signed a document in support of the First Amendment. But the day before Election Day, a Pennsylvania judge declined to halt the sweepstakes.

America PAC’s revival of the use of petitions, and the wording of its new document in Wisconsin, reveal two of Mr. Musk’s priorities as he wields wide power in Washington.

The first is his focus on the court election in Wisconsin, which could swing control of the state’s top judicial body back to conservatives after liberals won a major victory there in 2023. Mr. Musk’s super PAC and an allied nonprofit group have spent over $11 million to try to elect Judge Schimel, which would again push the battleground state rightward on issues like redistricting and abortion rights.

Mr. Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, has also sued Wisconsin to challenge a state law prohibiting manufacturers from owning dealerships. In January, eight days after Tesla filed the suit, Mr. Musk wrote on X, “Very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud.”

The second is Mr. Musk’s budding obsession with removing judges he sees as thwarting President Trump’s agenda. He posts daily on X about his frustrations with the federal judiciary, and the refreshed language of the new petition points to that focus.

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But despite the petition from Mr. Musk’s group denouncing judges who are openly political, there are few doubts about where the loyalties of his preferred candidate in Wisconsin lie: Judge Schimel is a longtime defender of Mr. Trump who dressed up as the president last Halloween.

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See TSA Wait Times at Major U.S. Airports

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See TSA Wait Times at Major U.S. Airports

Notes: Dots are sized by 2024 passenger count; times are for general security lines.

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Travelers are facing long waits at airport security checkpoints as the partial government shutdown continues to strain staffing for Transportation Security Administration workers. About 50,000 T.S.A. personnel have been working without pay for over a month, and hundreds have quit or called out of work.

On Monday, President Trump deployed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to some U.S. airports, saying that they would help ease long security lines. By Monday afternoon, the lines at the Atlanta, LaGuardia and Newark airports had become so long that those airports removed wait time estimates from their websites. Atlanta’s airport advised passengers to allow for at least four hours for security screenings.

Here are the latest available wait times at select major airports across the country.

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See wait times at airports across the country

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Notes: All wait times shown are as reported by airports on their websites. Some major airports did not provide live wait times. In cases in which a wait time is reported by the airport as a range, the higher number is used. All times are Eastern.

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Suspect in slaying of Loyola University student was in the country illegally, officials say

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Suspect in slaying of Loyola University student was in the country illegally, officials say

A Chicago man arrested for allegedly gunning down a Loyola University student was in the country illegally and captured in part because of his “distinct” limp, officials said Monday.

Sheridan Gorman, 18, was killed shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday near Tobey Prinz Beach Park, less than a mile from campus, police said.

Jose Medina, 25, was arrested Friday night and booked on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and other gun-related charges in connection with the fatal shooting of Gorman, who was from the New York City suburb of Yorktown Heights.

Medina’s scheduled court appearance on Monday was delayed after the defendant was taken to the hospital, prosecutors said. The nature of Medina’s injury or illness was not immediately disclosed.

The suspect wore black clothes and a black mask when he allegedly shot Gorman in the back in the early morning hours of Thursday, according to a Chicago police arrest report released on Monday.

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Witnesses described and nearby security cameras showed the suspect “walking with a distinct limp and slow gait,” according to the report.

Cameras then caught Medina entering his apartment house on N. Sheridan Road, and a building engineer identified the suspect as a resident, the police report said.

Sheridan Gorman.Courtesy Gorman family

Medina had been previously “apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol and released into the country,” according to a Department of Homeland Security statement.

The suspect was released again on June 19, 2023, following a shoplifting arrest in Chicago, federal officials said.

Gorman was “failed by open border policies and sanctuary politicians,” DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement.

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The report didn’t make clear what, if any, motive the suspect might have had for the attack.

“We are gravely disappointed by the policies and failures that allowed this individual to remain in a position to commit this crime,” a statement from Gorman’s family said.

“When systems fail — whether through release decisions, lack of coordination, or unwillingness to act — the consequences are not abstract. They are real. And in our case, they are permanent,” the family said.

It wasn’t immediately clear on Monday if Medina had hired or been appointed a lawyer to speak on his behalf.

Gorman’s slaying could take center stage in the nation’s ongoing debate on immigration in the same manner as Georgia nursing student Laken Riley’s murder in 2024.

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The suspect in her slaying, Venezuelan citizen Jose Antonio Ibarra, illegally entered America in 2022 near El Paso, authorities have said.

The Trump administration frequently invokes Riley’s name in its justification of mass deportations and other anti-immigration actions.

Riley’s family has asked that their loved one’s name not be used in this public debate.

“I’d rather her not be such a political, how you say — it started a storm in our country,” father Jason Riley told NBC’s “TODAY” show a month after his daughter’s death, “and it’s incited a lot of people.”

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Video: Plane Collides With Vehicle at LaGuardia Airport

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Video: Plane Collides With Vehicle at LaGuardia Airport

new video loaded: Plane Collides With Vehicle at LaGuardia Airport

Emergency crews swarmed a damaged Air Canada Express plane with a sheared off nose at LaGuardia Airport.
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By Jiawei Wang

March 23, 2026

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